Skip to content

Influence, Airports, and the Nerdfighter Book Club

2014-04-29 · letter vlog · John · 3:39 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing (also: Nerdfighteria) · mode: Advice & reviews · tags: recurring series, timely hook, on location

John jokes about his unearned place in the Time 100, then sets a June 10 due date for the Nerdfighter Book Club's Behind the Beautiful Forevers and offers things to keep in mind while reading: don't extrapolate, notice luck, property, water and poverty above the poverty line.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Time names John one of the 100 most influential people; an unearned honour, more influential people, the party, the teen whisperer label

  • ★★★ John says Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, so he is going to New York for its party. — 00:00:04 · New York City
  • ★★ John calls it an unearned honor: he can name several thousand more influential people who did not make the Time 100, such as Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Laverne Cox and Ai Weiwei. — 00:00:13
  • ★ John jokes that French President Francois Hollande's daily decision not to use France's nuclear arsenal to end the human species is extremely influential. (playful) — 00:00:32
  • ★★ John says he is delighted and honored to have been included anyway and gets to go to the party with others on the Time 100. — 00:00:45
  • ★ Time called John a 'teen whisperer'; he jokes that what teens love to talk about is Pulitzer-winning nonfiction about people in a Mumbai slum. (playful) — 00:01:02

00:01:20 — At the airport: Nerdfighter Book Club reads Behind the Beautiful Forevers, due June 10 after the TFIOS film; extra credit Maximum City

  • ★★ John says this summer the Nerdfighter Book Club is reading Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers, which he calls a fascinating book. — 00:01:23
  • ★★★ John apologizes for not giving a due date and sets June 10, since the TFIOS film comes out June 6 and things will be crazy until then. — 00:01:28 · The Fault in Our Stars (film)
  • ★★ John tells Nerdfighters they must read the book by June 10, joking that otherwise nothing will happen to them. (playful) — 00:01:38
  • ★★ As an extra-credit assignment, John suggests reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers alongside Maximum City, another book about Mumbai. (hedged) — 00:01:42

00:02:00 — Things to bear in mind while reading: resist extrapolating, luck versus meritocracy, private property, water, poverty above the global poverty line, complexity

  • ★★★ John says readers should resist the urge to extrapolate: the book is about a few people in one community, not about slums or India in general. (hedged) — 00:02:05

  • ★★★ John says we are hardwired to like stories that make sense because memory is narrative, so the mind erases luck; outcomes come from causes plus lots of luck, including an editor at Time liking your book. — 00:02:15

    “a luck-eraser inside the human mind”

  • ★★ John asks readers how their view of the world changes when they incorporate luck instead of assuming human life is essentially a meritocracy. — 00:02:39

  • ★★ John also points readers to the weirdness of private property (how land becomes owned) and says it is always worth paying attention to water. — 00:02:45
  • ★★ John says global poverty usually refers to people living on the equivalent of less than $1.25 a day, which is the case for more than a billion people. — 00:02:51 · extreme poverty
  • ★★★ John says the people of Annawadi whom Katherine Boo writes about live above the global poverty line and participate in, some would say benefit from, global capitalism, with complicated results. — 00:02:59 · capitalism, extreme poverty
  • ★★★ John says the great thing about Behind the Beautiful Forevers is that everything is complicated: governments, nonprofits, microfinance, religious organizations and people. — 00:03:13

00:03:24 — Flight boarding sign-off and an airport security announcement gag

Humor (significant)

  • Imagining the Time 100 party with Putin and Kim Il Sung ('Probably not Kim Il Sung'), John makes a pledge. — 00:00:55

    “if he is there, I promise I will take a selfie with him and then I will make a citizen's arrest for human rights violations.”

  • Time called John a teen whisperer; he claims to know what teens love to talk about. — 00:01:13

    “Pulitzer Prize winning non-fiction books about people living in a slum in Mumbai.”

  • John finally sets a firm book-club deadline with a threat. — 00:01:38

    “You must read this book by June 10th or else nothing is going to happen to you.”

  • An airport loudspeaker asks for attention and begins a TSA announcement about 'the removal of unattended -'. — 00:03:29

    “Does it REALLY?! I've never heard that before!”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Behind the Beautiful Forevers · narrative fallacy · Nerdfighter Book Club · Time 100

Also: People: Ai Weiwei · Ellen Johnson Sirleaf · François Hollande · Kim Il Sung · Laverne Cox · Vladimir Putin

Works: Maximum City · The Fault in Our Stars (film)

Organizations: Pulitzer Prize · Snapchat · Time · Transportation Security Administration

Concepts: capitalism · extreme poverty · meritocracy · microfinance · private property

Places: Annawadi · France · India · Mumbai · New York City

Only in the description or credits: Katherine Boo · Suketu Mehta

Also centred on Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Walking the Red Carpet: Thoughts from Los Angeles · Our Old Friend Complexity: Behind the Beautiful Forevers · Exciting Announcements and Mosquito-Borne Illnesses · Ambiguous Victories and Real Progress: Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Also centred on narrative fallacy: YOU ARE WRONG! · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award · Towering Mountains of Ignorance · On Mental Illness (and the end of Pizzamas)

Also centred on Nerdfighter Book Club: Brotherhood 2.0: January 8, 2007 · Week 2 Condensed Highlight Reel · March 22nd: Book Club and Business Cards · September 6th: The Book Club Returns · Flinching in the Shower · The Physics of Book Clubs and Vidcon

Also centred on Time 100: A Stunning Turn of Events

← Previous: I Love Science (Clean Version) (Uncensored link in the Description) · Next → Hank vs. Hank: The Net Neutrality Debate in 3 Minutes